by John Leonard, NY Times (1982)
Wanting to be God makes you crazy. In Paul Theroux's astonishing new novel, Allie Fox - ''the last American'' - tries to invent his own godhood. He will straighten rivers, make ice out of fire and turn volcanos into hibachis. The original God, that ''dead boy with the spinning top,'' did not, after all, ''finish the job.'' We are reading about the Passion of Allie Fox as witnessed and recorded by his 13-year-old son, Charlie, who is hypnotized and terrified.
How much do I like this book? Let me count the ways:
(1) As a text on fathers and sons, it is wonderful. The family is the first ''creation.'' To sons, fathers are automatically gods, not only because they have violent opinions on everything from aerosol cheese spread to pelicans, but especially when they test our faith by forcing us to climb trees or the ''shrouds'' of a banana freighter during a Caribbean storm or the inside plumbing of a huge ''magnification'' of the ''entrails and vitals'' of the human body. Gods, of course, insist that their sons fail.
(2) As a book about growing up to critical intelligence, it devastates. Charlie watches his father from the asparagus farms of Massachusetts to the spider jungles of Honduras. He sees a ''sorcerer'' create a garden out of hardware and destroy it out of pride. He will understand that his father invents ''for his own sake,'' for personal comfort, and that he needs his son's approval, which, ultimately, Charlie will refuse.
(3) As a book of characters, it is unexcelled since Dickens was in business. Allie really is a genius with his tools; and his opinions, however extreme, are persuasive until they hurt. Charlie, before and after he becomes Holden Caulfield, acquaints us with the dangers of love. His mother, who has no other name, is evoked in a series of her own stony one-liners -against the tide of Allie's monologues - that stab the heart. The rest of the Fox children, sniveling Jerry and the twin girls, do their narrative duty with an admirable lack of fuss, and so does everybody else, including the ''mosquitoes,'' in this soured dream.
(4) As literary exhibitionism, it is as magical as Allie. Mr. Theroux writes as well about thermodynamics as he does about Central American weather. His geographies of mind and space are equally compelling. If he mentions a scarecrow or a scavenger early on, we can be sure that each will appear later on, decisively symbolic. Out of English, Spanish, Creole, Pidgin and various Indian dialects, he fashions a dazzling patois full of such pertinent puns as ''nighted stays'' and ''Jove as Wetness. '' Yes, he is showing off; if we could do it, we'd s how off, too.
(5) As an adventure story of ''the first family,'' it scares the socks off the feet. Sure, Mr. Theroux is being ironic about ''Robinson Crusoe'' and ''Swiss Family Robinson,'' not to mention ''Lord of the Flies.'' Allie, in fact, reminds me more of Lord Jim, John Galt, Henderson the Rain-King, Ahab and one of the crazier Buendias in ''One Hundred Years of Solitude.'' (Garcia Marquez, remember, had ice in his tropics.) But it delivers the bloody goods: journey, fear, revelation, manhood, apocalypse.
(6) As parable, allegory, myth, cryptogram on human improbability and metaphysical binge, addressing itself to creation theory, the ages of Stone and Bronze, capitalism, imperialism, science and technology, the postindustrial complex and the hubris of art, ''The Mosquito Coast'' - alas -tends to sag somewhere around the Industrial Revolution. This is not because the ideas aren't interesting, but because Mr. Theroux doesn't trust his readers. He explains and underlines, insisting on God, Prometheus, Faust, Frankenstein, Parsifal, Dr. Strangelove, the latest genetic engineer and the plumber who never arrives to fix the septic tank of the modern mind. He won't let us guess, and he should have. He is a typical father.
(7) Also, it is very funny, unlike fathers. Enough numbers. I've forgotten to say what happens. The Swiss Family Fox decamps to Honduras. Its children, uneasy about the village their father buys and ''improves'' with such machines as Fat Boy - think of Moloch, and the atom bomb at Los Alamos, and Pandora's Box as a ''worm tub'' - these children hide in what is called the ''Acre,'' where they reinvent nakedness, religion, schools, money and secrets. Because they are ''in touch with the seasons,'' they will save their father before they betray him.
Their father, that perpetual motion machine who won't even eat bananas because they make a ''monkey'' out of you, that engineer of love, that would-be God who is picky about his food and his bedroll and his children, that Jeremiah who reviles radio, television, flashlights, formal education and Toyotas - where did he get so smart? - builds a pyramid and digs a hole. He will improve on creation; he experiences guilt; his nerve fails, and nevertheless he speechifies, which may be why the real world tears out his tongue. Only happy ''going against the current'' - surely this is German Romanticism and therefore suspect -he is scavenged. And the scarecrow, unsurprisingly, is Christ.
Fancy with the metaphysics, Mr. Theroux invents a resistance to his own clever dance. Specific with his family romance, he enthralls. Generous in his ''geothermal'' dig, he bores a hole in the head. Grinning, he made me cry. Sly, he makes me wonder why he himself left Massachusetts for England.
via:
Original article via the NY Times
Wanting to be God makes you crazy. In Paul Theroux's astonishing new novel, Allie Fox - ''the last American'' - tries to invent his own godhood. He will straighten rivers, make ice out of fire and turn volcanos into hibachis. The original God, that ''dead boy with the spinning top,'' did not, after all, ''finish the job.'' We are reading about the Passion of Allie Fox as witnessed and recorded by his 13-year-old son, Charlie, who is hypnotized and terrified.
How much do I like this book? Let me count the ways: (1) As a text on fathers and sons, it is wonderful. The family is the first ''creation.'' To sons, fathers are automatically gods, not only because they have violent opinions on everything from aerosol cheese spread to pelicans, but especially when they test our faith by forcing us to climb trees or the ''shrouds'' of a banana freighter during a Caribbean storm or the inside plumbing of a huge ''magnification'' of the ''entrails and vitals'' of the human body. Gods, of course, insist that their sons fail.
(2) As a book about growing up to critical intelligence, it devastates. Charlie watches his father from the asparagus farms of Massachusetts to the spider jungles of Honduras. He sees a ''sorcerer'' create a garden out of hardware and destroy it out of pride. He will understand that his father invents ''for his own sake,'' for personal comfort, and that he needs his son's approval, which, ultimately, Charlie will refuse.
(3) As a book of characters, it is unexcelled since Dickens was in business. Allie really is a genius with his tools; and his opinions, however extreme, are persuasive until they hurt. Charlie, before and after he becomes Holden Caulfield, acquaints us with the dangers of love. His mother, who has no other name, is evoked in a series of her own stony one-liners -against the tide of Allie's monologues - that stab the heart. The rest of the Fox children, sniveling Jerry and the twin girls, do their narrative duty with an admirable lack of fuss, and so does everybody else, including the ''mosquitoes,'' in this soured dream.
(4) As literary exhibitionism, it is as magical as Allie. Mr. Theroux writes as well about thermodynamics as he does about Central American weather. His geographies of mind and space are equally compelling. If he mentions a scarecrow or a scavenger early on, we can be sure that each will appear later on, decisively symbolic. Out of English, Spanish, Creole, Pidgin and various Indian dialects, he fashions a dazzling patois full of such pertinent puns as ''nighted stays'' and ''Jove as Wetness. '' Yes, he is showing off; if we could do it, we'd s how off, too.
(5) As an adventure story of ''the first family,'' it scares the socks off the feet. Sure, Mr. Theroux is being ironic about ''Robinson Crusoe'' and ''Swiss Family Robinson,'' not to mention ''Lord of the Flies.'' Allie, in fact, reminds me more of Lord Jim, John Galt, Henderson the Rain-King, Ahab and one of the crazier Buendias in ''One Hundred Years of Solitude.'' (Garcia Marquez, remember, had ice in his tropics.) But it delivers the bloody goods: journey, fear, revelation, manhood, apocalypse.
(6) As parable, allegory, myth, cryptogram on human improbability and metaphysical binge, addressing itself to creation theory, the ages of Stone and Bronze, capitalism, imperialism, science and technology, the postindustrial complex and the hubris of art, ''The Mosquito Coast'' - alas -tends to sag somewhere around the Industrial Revolution. This is not because the ideas aren't interesting, but because Mr. Theroux doesn't trust his readers. He explains and underlines, insisting on God, Prometheus, Faust, Frankenstein, Parsifal, Dr. Strangelove, the latest genetic engineer and the plumber who never arrives to fix the septic tank of the modern mind. He won't let us guess, and he should have. He is a typical father.
(7) Also, it is very funny, unlike fathers. Enough numbers. I've forgotten to say what happens. The Swiss Family Fox decamps to Honduras. Its children, uneasy about the village their father buys and ''improves'' with such machines as Fat Boy - think of Moloch, and the atom bomb at Los Alamos, and Pandora's Box as a ''worm tub'' - these children hide in what is called the ''Acre,'' where they reinvent nakedness, religion, schools, money and secrets. Because they are ''in touch with the seasons,'' they will save their father before they betray him.
Their father, that perpetual motion machine who won't even eat bananas because they make a ''monkey'' out of you, that engineer of love, that would-be God who is picky about his food and his bedroll and his children, that Jeremiah who reviles radio, television, flashlights, formal education and Toyotas - where did he get so smart? - builds a pyramid and digs a hole. He will improve on creation; he experiences guilt; his nerve fails, and nevertheless he speechifies, which may be why the real world tears out his tongue. Only happy ''going against the current'' - surely this is German Romanticism and therefore suspect -he is scavenged. And the scarecrow, unsurprisingly, is Christ.
Fancy with the metaphysics, Mr. Theroux invents a resistance to his own clever dance. Specific with his family romance, he enthralls. Generous in his ''geothermal'' dig, he bores a hole in the head. Grinning, he made me cry. Sly, he makes me wonder why he himself left Massachusetts for England.
via:
Original article via the NY Times
